Private product presentations at an exhibition

At many exhibitions, the real business happens away from the open stand. A meeting room off the main floor, a screened corner of the booth or a hotel suite nearby may host appointments with buyers, distributors or partners. A photographer has no automatic place in any of them.

This page belongs to our guide to exhibitor and brand-activation photography.

What makes a presentation private?

It may be appointment-only, it may involve products not yet announced, or it may include commercial terms the exhibitor does not want recorded. It may also involve guests who have their own reasons for not appearing in photographs.

We do not decide which presentations are private. The exhibitor does, and the exhibitor tells the photographer. If there is any doubt, the photographer waits outside and asks.

What should be agreed before the day?

A short written list, for each presentation: the time and place, whether photography is allowed, what is cleared and what is excluded. Examples of what might be cleared are the room set-up before guests arrive, a wide frame with no faces, or the handshake at the end.

Our photography responsibility planner helps assign who approves what. Name one person at the stand who can answer questions quickly and who has the authority to say yes or no.

What about contracts and legal terms?

Confidentiality, non-disclosure and distribution agreements may bear on whether a presentation can be photographed or what may be done with the images. Whether and how they apply depends on their wording and on Malaysian law, and that is a matter for your legal adviser, not for us or this page.

Venue rules and organiser conditions are separate again. Keep these three apart: the law, your contracts, and the venue's or organiser's rules. Our guide to venue permission, participant permission and photographer terms explains how the layers differ. We follow the instructions you give us after you have taken whatever advice you need.

A hypothetical example

For example, an electronics exhibitor holds three buyer appointments in a screened room within its stand. A new model is shown only in the second appointment, and the exhibitor wants no images of it.

The exhibitor clears the room set-up before the first appointment, the entrance and a wide frame of the first meeting with no faces. The photographer leaves for the second appointment and returns after the product is covered. The third appointment is photographed from the doorway with the new model out of view.

How is this different from a public stand?

On the open floor, visitors can see the product and the stand lead can decide moment by moment. In a private room, guests have not agreed to be in the stand's pictures unless someone told them. Photographing active commercial negotiations at a booth deals with the open-floor version of the same problem.

Information on screens and paperwork can be an issue too. Customer cards, lead screens and private information at stands explains how to keep it out of frame.

If the presentation is a product announcement

A brief reveal inside the stand, for invited guests, is a different case, covered in a product announcement inside an exhibition stand. Planning the permitted moments and guests matters there too.

What if something is photographed by mistake?

Agree this in advance. A sensible arrangement is that the photographer tells the stand lead, sets the images aside and deletes or withholds them as instructed. We record the agreed handling in the brief, and we do not release the images to anyone else.

Questions to settle

Who has authority to say that a presentation may be photographed? Which products are confidential, and until when? Which guests have agreed to appear? What do you want to show afterwards that does not depend on the private detail?

Having those answers on paper means the photographer can work calmly around the door instead of guessing at it.